1. Technical Field
The present inventive subject matter relates to methods and systems of harvesting airborne moisture.
2. Description of the Related Art
In climates with little rainfall, pursuits highly dependent on water availability such as agriculture may be limited or impossible. In the worst cases of drought, insufficient water for a population can lead to economic disaster and in some cases a humanitarian crisis as food production becomes impaired and drinking water scarce. In view of these circumstances, technologies have emerged with the goal of fresh water production or reclamation, a particularly low-cost group of technologies being those aimed at the collection of airborne moisture or so-called fog harvesting. One such technology involves erecting large stationary panels of woven fibers such as a polyolefin or stainless steel mesh. When fog contacts the woven mesh, moisture collects or condenses between the fibers migrating mainly by gravity to collection receptacles and is accessed by users or stored for later use. Woven mesh adapted to collect moisture is discussed for example in U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2014/01900352, published Jul. 10, 2014 to Park entitled “Liquid Collecting Permeable Structures,” also published as U.S. Pat. No. 9,352,258, issued May 31, 2016 (“Park I”), the entire substance and contents of which are wholly incorporated by reference herein. Such systems remain stationary and are most effective when fog or mist travel to the stationary location under the power of wind or other meteorological factors. Because of the sporadic nature of fog, the use of such fog collectors has inherent limitations in terms of efficiency, i.e. the fog collectors are not always actively collecting moisture from fog especially when fog aggregates in low lying areas or areas lacking sufficient air movement. Moreover, at times when moisture collectors are not serving their function, their placement may present a physical and visible obstruction that may adversely affect land use by humans as well movement patterns of local wildlife. Stationary meshes can be a particular hazard to bird populations. In addition, the fog collectors themselves, being always exposed to the elements, are subject to degradation due to weather and solar radiation.
Meanwhile, in an area of technology conventionally unrelated to harvesting airborne moisture, there exist various methods of image-based object recognition. See, for example, U.S. Patent Application Pub. Nos. 2015/0049939 entitled “Metric-Based Recognition, Systems and Methods,” 2015/0161474 entitled “Feature Density Object Classification, Systems and Methods” (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,466,009), 2015/0254510 entitled “Object Recognition Trait Analysis Systems and Methods,” 2015/0261803 entitled “Edge-Based Recognition, Systems and Methods,” 2015/0262036 entitled “Global Visual Vocabulary, Systems and Methods,” 2015/0278224 entitled “Image Recognition Verification,” 2015/0294188 entitled “Invariant-Based Dimensional Reduction of Object Recognition Features, Systems and Methods” (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,460,366), 2015/0310306 entitled “Robust Feature Identification for Image-Based Object Recognition” (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,558,426), 2015/0324998 (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,412,176), 2015/0363644 entitled “Activity Recognition Systems and Methods” (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,547,678), 2016/0012597 entitled “Feature Trackability Ranking, Systems and Methods,” 2016/0259815 entitled “Large Scale Image Recognition Using Global Signatures and Local Feature Information,” 2016/0259816 entitled “Global Signatures for Large-Scale Image Recognition,” and 2016/0275353 entitled “Fast Recognition Algorithm Processing, Systems and Methods” (issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,508,009), the entirety of each of which is wholly incorporated herein by reference. Among such methods are those that make use of edge detection algorithms, e.g. to determine edge-based feature descriptors for a digital image.